Two-time world surfing champion Tyler Wright heats up surf fans with Australia Day post critical of country’s “genocidal history, “institutional racism” and “white supremacy”!

"No pride in genocide!"

The two-time world champ Tyler Wright has again fired up against the forces of rabid prejudice in a post denouncing Australia as genocidal, racist and its annual day of celebration a symbol of the country’s structural and institutionalised white supremacy.

For non-Australian readers, and for many Australians too, I suppose, who might be unaware of the date’s significance, January 26 represents the day in 1788 when eleven prison hulks from England arrived in Sydney Cove to establish a penal colony.

This penal colony has since become one of the world’s most stable democracies, free healthcare, school, and so on. A free-wheeling capitalist society wrapped in the loving arms of a generous welfare state.

For our indigenous brothers and sisters, the arrival of the European was a catastrophe, a disaster still unfurling two centuries later.

Ain’t no secret there.

From Tyler,

Jan 26th is Invasion Day. My fellow white and non indigenous Australian friends where are you all showing up for Invasion Day marches? If you can’t make one, how else are you showing up for First Nations people everyday? Lets show @scottmorrisonmp that there is No Pride in Genocide, celebrating on jan 26th is ignorant of our colonial and genocidal history. Unity comes after accountability and truth telling. Let’s hold each other accountable. Let’s all do better to dismantle individual, systemic, structural and institutionalised racism founded in white supremacy.

Apart from the usual high-profile groupies, rank and file fans weren’t so convinced.

Good or bad, history is history. I’m proud of our country, what it stands for and what we’ve been able to achieve. I feel this post is ridiculous and divisive but being a free country we are all entitled to our own opinions and we have to right to freely express our thoughts. Why do we have to apologise for everything? We should celebrate that there has been good and bad, but through it all, our country is an amazing place for everybody. I find it difficult to believe there’s systematic racism, everybody in this country has the same opportunities and choices and it’s up to you what you want to make of it. Happy Australia Day everybody.

Ill be celebrating Aussie day on the 26th January like everyone else should be. Yes I’m ABORIGINAL and I’m over all this crap about changing the date. History is history, move on and enjoy life. Cant change the past

Haha aussie black lives matter movement. Maybe it will completely divide your country like it did mine. Good luck virtue signaling just like the 🇺🇸

Thanks but no thanks!!! Love this Country for everything and everyone who is part regardless of Nationality,colour or what ever else you are!! Was nice following you but catch ya later!!🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

Very divisive comment, how about coming together like Warren Mundine is advocating

One fan asked,

Can you be more specific about the systemic, structural and institutionalised racism that you see? As you mention that this was founded in white supremacy, do you think white supremacy is a problem that still exists in Australia today? Is there another date that you would suggest for an Australia Day celebration?

And received this reply,

I think it’s more a focus on outrage, hate, division, blame and generally telling young indigenous kids that the world is against them. I’m sure Tyler feels good about the virtue signalling though……..

You’ll remember, four months ago, when Tyler dropped a knee at the Tweed Heads Pro for for four hundred and thirty-nine seconds in solitary with Black Lives Matter, the number representing “one second for every First Nations person in Australia who has lost their life in police custody since 1991.”

Tyler correctly raised the issue of black deaths in custody, something that’s been in the public consciousness in Australia since a royal commission was called in 1987 after a horror run of indigenous Australians dying while in police custody.

The result wasn’t quite so clear cut.

The four-year long Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody “did not find higher rates of death of Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people.”

And, now, “Overall, the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody has reduced since 1991, as of June 2020 lower than the rate of death of non-Indigenous people.”

Of 2608 total deaths in police custody between 1979 and 2018, roughly five hundred of ‘em were indigenous.

A.B. Original & Paul Kelly cover 'Dumb Things' for Like A Version
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choctopus

Such a wit Toaster… Farkwit, that is!
Also hard not to notice you didn’t answer any of my questions.
As for your question – no sand, no vagina.
Just sick of ignorant keyboard clowns like you – snipers who couldn’t hit the side of a barn from point-blank range & duck back into a hole rather than face a challenger head on. As before, if you have the nuts to continue the debate face-to-face, just let me know…

choctopus

Yes, I did work for RC for 17 years, but haven’t for a decade. You may want to argue out of the bitter and ignorant cynicism that’s evident in your first comment about Tyler, but I’m proud of what I did for RC.
Did you get turned down for RC sponsorship at some point perhaps? Or are you just a misogynist who can’t get his head around Tyler being a better surfer than you?
Now, how old are you Toaster? When did you start thinking about anything other than yourself & doing something positive about it?
I fly Tyler’s flag because I know her + she’s a great surfer & a good-hearted, genuine 26 y/o person.
What’s her health got to do with it?
More than two years being able to do diddly squat enabled her to think about things (other than surfing) that are important to her.
She’s clearly made a decision to use her status as a much-admired world champion to draw attention to a major societal failure.
Saying she’s held “herself up as a paragon of virtue” implies you know she is not virtuous. How? In what ways?
Stump up or shut up!
Btw, if you ever want to continue the debate face-to-face, just let me know – I’m happy to arrange a meeting…

choctopus

Toaster – have you even ever met Tyler??? (I’ve known her & rest of family more than 15 years…)
Fyi, facts are she’s a young woman still recovering from an ordinary few years (health-wise) & now showing leadership, as befits a 2-time world champion.
Crawl back into your hole…

Snake

…Maybe because the BLM movement was a turning point for many?

Blank Flag

Just because you say it doesn’t make it so…cunt

Low wide stinkbug stance

Once again complex things get dumbed down to the point where you are forced to sit on one side of the fence or the other. We should be raging against aboriginal deaths in custody. We should be raging against educational outcomes for Aboriginal kids

But nah we rage against a date in a calendar that won’t do anything to fix the underlying problems. I’m fucking sick of everything becoming politicised because all it does is create divisions. Changing the date to 1st of Jan, or any other day, won’t change squat while we have a cycle of poverty which leads to poor education, incarceration and more poverty in the next generation.

Brutus

it is certainly killing you on this forum!!

OttoDon’tSurf

I know that’s why I wrote Australia and Canada.
In academia they are neither Indians or Native Americans, they are America’s indigenous people who call themselves by many names. There is immense cultural diversity amongst the first peoples of the continent.
It’s not accurate to say that all of America’s indigenous peoples desire to be called Indians or that they that object to being called Native American.
It’s not a homogeneous group.
Careful getting your info from YouTube.
It’s not reliable.
If you to really want to educate your self on something, I recommend reading about the subject somewhere that cites it sources so that it can be fact checked.

choctopus

Derek, sloppy & highly selective bit of journalism with your quote about the results of the Royal Commission Into Black Deaths In Custody: “The four-year long Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ‘did not find higher rates of death of Aboriginal people compared to non-Aboriginal people.'”
The deeper & far more important issue was & continues to be the rate of incarceration of Australian indigenous vs non-indigenous people, which – as occurs in the USA with the rate of African American jail populations vs other Americans – is fundamentally criminal, considering the % of population of indigenous Australians vs non-indigenous & the % of population of African Americans vs other Americans…
Showing your “white-bred status” & racism???

BadBrainsb

Hey bex. It makes me uncomfortable that I probably live in a small radius to you and have probably shared a surf with you at some stage. I’m kinda surprised the mods havnt banned you yet. You literally spread hate in every thread, particularly towards indigenous people. I feel sorry for you. To harbour that much hatred and the constant need to express it on a small online surf forum.

Brutus

already read it and the supporting data……..but there is a whole right wing critique of Dark emu as false, as the idea that Indigenous Australians were actually way more advanced than European culture…..which threatens their version of history of a dominant superior race…..

Rich Marx

As demonstrated by John Locke’s second treatise on civil government, the act of surfing itself is the act of property ownership.

Waves are spontaneously created by the hand of nature. No individual has the right to exercise private dominion over waves in their wild and unbroken state. Some surfers maintain that no own “owns” the waves. However the act of riding a wave is, in itself, an exercise of two fundamental property rights – the right to use and the right to exclude others.

This presents an interesting contradiction that must be analyzed through a dialectical materialist framework. If no one owns the lineup, what gives an individual surfer the right to use a wave at the exclusion of others? When do these rights attach?

The answer lies in their own labor. It is uncontroversial to state that each surfer “owns” their body. It necessarily follows that the labor of their body and the work of their hands are properly theirs. So when a surfer removes a wave from the state of nature and combines it with their own labor, the wave thus enters the sphere of the surfer’s own personal dominion.

This doesn’t completely resolve the issue of ownership. What happens when two surfers each use their own labor in their attempt to exercise dominion over the same wave? How are the competing ownership claims resolved? This specific contradiction results in the greatest injustice facing the world today. In short, the surfer who is more experienced will generally have the superior claim of ownership. This results in the beginner being alienated from his own labor, and is thus alienated from being stoked.

Some may say that this is justifiable and right. A better surfer who knows more people in the lineup getting more and better waves is analogous to an employee who is better at their job and has a better reputation getting paid more. However I reject this as nothing but pure entitlement because I should get those waves.

While Ms. Wright’s words are noble, I agree that they are empty without praxis. However, instead of giving back real property to or sharing with aboriginal Australians, Ms. Wright and other rippers should give set waves to beginners.

Brutus

yeah it’s just the symbolism the date….and I agree that a lot of people don’t really engage and just want a feel good moment…but there is a movement to recognize and educate from past history…and this is a very hopeful time where people are questioning and actually doing something, so the evolution continues…..to be part of the solution in any issue , is a positive!

Ollybeak

Fuck me. You’re a tedious prick eh. Can’t you find somewhere else to troll.

Billy Hunt

Diversity of opinion is what makes this country great

Brutus

but you are throwback with a UK passport and strong dislike for Indigenous Australians…..so really what would you know except racism/homophobe/white supremacist …….ah bex I don’t see you as Australian…more like a hybrid Ku Klux Klan kinda guy…….

Snake

The difference between Tyler and Derek is that Tyler is an inspiration to many, and the generation to come. “Virtue signaling” is a pretty cynical take on what I’d call the spread of information, positivity, and acknowledgement of how our & most European-descent societies has been built on the oppression and destruction of the land’s native inhabitants. Derek you are mega-pro Israel, yea? You’re going to have a pretty twisted take on any BLM/Australia Day “virtue signaling” if you have no qualms with the current apartheid going on in that corner of the world.

So while Derek is sifting through Tyler’s instagram comments to inspire a sardonic readership, Tyler is (hopefully) educating and enlightening someone, somewhere… to be a little more compassionate.

Ed
Urchin Sepsis
East of the 5

Amazing!

Urchin Sepsis
Brutus

classic piss take of Australia Day….so interesting to see criticism here of Tyler trying to be part of a movement that deals with Australia’s issues of it’s treatment of it’s indigenous peoples and culture.

First of all you have to know the issue/problem /facts to have an opinion?

Just wondering how many people critical of Tyler know Australia’s Indigenous History ….like here in Victoria 67 recorded massacres …..and Vic Indigenous kids 9 times higher levels of incarceration per capita than other races…so

I wrote this on swellnet in answer to what is an Australian , and what part should our Indigenous Aboriginals culture and peoples play in being an Australian?

Try this for an idea…..that there was and is a living Culture here in Australia , that was not a technologically based culture.
In 60000 years or more social evolution was part of what we now call Australia’s Indigenous / First Nation peoples.
200 + years ago a Technological superior race arrived and conquered the First peoples , then raped and pillaged them used them as slave labor and considered them savages , not human, so were treated very badly by the invaders, their world /culture changed forever for the worse…genocide was tried here and there over a couple of hundred years…….and a new nation was born from the colonial practices of the time….finally aboriginals were recognized as human in to 1960’s…by the new Australian society/culture and since then its been a big battle to rid the racism that is still present in our Australian Culture , and the lack of equality is still being addressed as is the idea of Australia Day being a celebration of what ‘s good about Australia….
But for our First Peoples , this is a sad day , because of the lack of understanding of Australia’s history towards the First Peoples , and also their 60K history which very few Australians understand and embrace…because it’s Australia’s history our history.
Imagine being able to talk to other nations about being an Australian , where we have a 60,000 year culture , and that Australians are the oldest living race on Earth , where we have 30K year old Art and a social system to envy!
There seems to be a divide about , who are we….a Cosmopolitan society that embraces all contributing cultures, but the foundation is our 60K culture..and we are evolving still as a Nation , just like when the colonialists arrived or the first wave of Italians/Greeks/ Vietnamese etc…
So I love Invasion Day as the day when we discuss and accept all Australians….whether they be white/black /brown /red/yellow….FFS we are all Humans !!

Billy Hunt

Well said Maurice

ricmatic

Imagine the Danes ignoring the vikings.

Low wide stinkbug stance

I wonder if that 67 recorded massacres include the ones witnessed by William Buckley.

DrunkenAngel

Australia Day? You lot are arguing over whether to celebrate invasion, genocide, enslavement of people, and the like. Disgusting.

Wades Beard

ah FFS change the date, change the flag, change the anthem, then can we have a beer and get on, does my head in the day.

DrunkenAngel

oh poor you! you think someone is keeping you from having a beer!


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